Western Standard - February 16, 2022


WATCH： Civil liberties group says feds haven’t met the threshold to invoke Emergencies Act


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Length

16 minutes

Words per minute

146.99817

Word count

2,495

Sentence count

59


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Good evening. I'm Melanie Risden with the Western Standard. In light of the fact that the country has been brought under the Emergency Act, we thought we would check in with Abby Deschman, Director of Criminal Justice for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, just to get a good
00:00:29.980 snapshot of what the Emergencies Act is all about and just get an understanding of where
00:00:37.620 we're at in our country. Thanks for joining us, Abby. My pleasure. So why don't we start with
00:00:43.860 the Emergencies Act and what that gives the government the ability to do?
00:00:49.580 Yeah, so this is really an extraordinary piece of legislation. It authorizes the government to take
00:00:56.300 very concentrated power into the cabinet. So it gives a lot of power to the prime minister
00:01:03.760 and the cabinet ministers to make very far-reaching orders in order to address
00:01:10.640 national emergencies. The type of national emergencies that the legislation anticipates
00:01:15.820 are things like war, pandemics that can't be managed by the province, very serious threats
00:01:24.080 to Canadians' health and safety that can't be managed by the provinces using existing laws and
00:01:31.400 legal powers, such that they are a national emergency. So it's really quite serious national
00:01:37.240 emergencies. And if that is met, it gives a lot of power to the federal government to enact orders
00:01:44.400 that otherwise, you know, that authorize activities that would otherwise be under the current law.
00:01:50.820 Right, and I understand that this particular legislation has never been invoked in Canada.
00:02:00.180 It did replace the War Measures Act, which was invoked back in 1970 for the FLQ October
00:02:07.120 crisis.
00:02:08.520 But I mean, at that point in time, there were six people killed, there were actual terrorist
00:02:14.240 attacks, bombings, kidnappings, and the like.
00:02:20.800 So at that time, bringing in a War Measures Act seemed to make sense.
00:02:26.740 But how is this, in your opinion, not fitting for what we're facing right now as a country?
00:02:35.000 Yeah, so as I said, it really focuses, and you have the text right up there, on serious threats to individuals' health and safety that are national emergencies that can't be handled by the provinces under existing law.
00:02:49.120 And right now, we certainly have many protests that are of national concern, right?
00:02:53.940 They are impacting our borders.
00:02:55.440 They are impacting many communities across the country.
00:02:58.760 They are impacting international trade relationships.
00:03:01.860 So those are national issues.
00:03:03.760 But we are very concerned that it doesn't meet the threshold in the Emergencies Act of serious threat to Canadians' life or safety.
00:03:12.960 and that the current laws in many instances are quite adequate to deal with the emergency.
00:03:19.760 We've seen local police services acting under the laws and powers that they currently have,
00:03:26.400 and very successfully managing the vast majority of protests across the country. That really,
00:03:31.360 in our view, is not the type of national emergency that legally justifies the use of
00:03:36.400 these extraordinary powers and i will say on the on the um war measures act and ccla actually
00:03:42.080 objected to the use of the war measures act in the 1970s uh during that flq crisis because we
00:03:48.240 did not think it was a national crisis it was certainly a crisis in quebec right there's
00:03:52.960 absolutely acts of terror going on in quebec but again we had a government that enacted a national
00:04:00.880 emergency and arrests and restrictions on civil liberties took place across the country and in
00:04:06.720 retrospect that enactment of the war measures act in the 70s is now seen as a lesson of what
00:04:13.440 not to do it is now generally seen as having not been a legitimate use of emergency powers and has
00:04:20.960 led to really serious civil liberties violations for individuals across Canada at the time
00:04:26.720 And what is the biggest concern? What is the gravest concern with this being invoked now?
00:04:34.400 Let's find individuals' rights and freedoms across the country. So the types of measures that the
00:04:38.320 government says they're contemplating, and we don't have the specific orders yet, but the types
00:04:43.600 of measures that they've talked about are extreme. So they've talked about seizing individuals'
00:04:49.840 assets without a court order, if those assets have been used to support protests or blockades.
00:04:55.040 They've talked about freezing bank accounts of people who have supported the blockades.
00:05:01.360 They've talked about restricting public assemblies, restricting travel to and from specific places,
00:05:07.680 introducing the power to imprison people or fine people if they contravene emergency orders that
00:05:14.560 come out under this act. So really very strong and new powers that circumvent a lot of the judicial
00:05:22.320 oversight that we would expect when seizing property or freezing bank accounts,
00:05:27.120 and certainly would circumvent the normal legislative checks and balances
00:05:31.840 that we would expect when new laws or orders of this type are passed.
00:05:36.480 Now one of the examples that Justin Trudeau used when describing some of the initiatives that they
00:05:43.440 will use underneath this act one of them was talking about forcing businesses to produce
00:05:52.640 services for the government giving them no no choice such as the tow truck companies who so far
00:06:00.480 have been you know reluctant to to help support hauling away vehicles and protesters from from
00:06:10.800 locations right and that's that's another aspect of this you know we usually think about this type
00:06:16.400 of activity in wartime right commandeering a factory um or even in the pandemic right ensuring
00:06:21.600 that we have the ppe equipment necessary to confront a national public health concern
00:06:27.440 and you know the fact that specific individuals are concerned about participating in um one order
00:06:34.400 activities it you know it doesn't necessarily make it a national emergency people should have
00:06:39.760 the ability to decide uh where and how they provide services um and say whether or not they
00:06:47.280 want to actually provide services to you know the government or to another company so um this is
00:06:53.600 again a measure that uh would force people um into actions that they may not otherwise be willing to
00:06:59.600 take um and the government could pass law right the government could pass legislation um that does
00:07:06.080 all kinds of things through the normal legislative channels. It would take longer,
00:07:11.520 for sure, than an emergency order, but it would be subject to at least the democratic oversight
00:07:16.160 that we would expect in the normal course of a democracy. Now, speaking of that democratic
00:07:23.520 oversight, this technically has not been put in place. It still needs to be voted on or brought in
00:07:31.440 by um by the parliament and and senate and cabinet where where does it sit until then
00:07:40.240 yeah so it has to be brought before parliament uh within seven days but that doesn't mean that
00:07:46.400 the government can't start putting in place orders under this current um declaration so it's actually
00:07:54.880 an ex post democratic check so the government gets to act first and then later go to parliament and
00:08:00.960 say will you ratify this will you you know say that this uh declaration of emergency uh meets
00:08:07.440 your approval and the same thing happens with orders they can pass specific orders under the
00:08:12.880 emergencies act and then within two days they have to bring it to parliament and then parliament does
00:08:18.480 have the um choice about whether or not um they're going to um ratify those orders so so this has a
00:08:26.000 two-day uh deadline or i i was understanding it's longer yeah so this particular so this declaration
00:08:32.320 of the emergency has seven days before it has to be put before parliament the specific orders
00:08:37.920 uh which we still haven't seen right this is the general declaration of the emergency there they
00:08:42.480 have to come up with specific orders those would have to be put before parliament within two days
00:08:48.000 Okay. Well, I guess we will be watching this closely. And I'm not certain what recourse
00:08:57.240 there would be for people who say, have their have their assets frozen, or you know, their bank
00:09:03.540 accounts seized, funds seized. I'm not sure how that that works out. Is that a situation where
00:09:09.960 people would need to say use the legal system to sue uh how how does the what's the recourse for
00:09:17.880 that yeah no there's no clear recourse set out in the law um for people who are directly impacted
00:09:25.160 they would probably have to you're right start a legal case um and argue that the order itself
00:09:31.400 uh was illegal wasn't authorized by the legislation or was unconstitutional um so it does uh put a lot
00:09:39.880 of um onus a significant burden on people who might be subject and impacted by these orders
00:09:47.880 and clearly for the uh sorry the Canadian Civil Liberties Association a group that fights for
00:09:55.640 uh rights violations this is uh this is concerning yeah absolutely you know we have thousands and
00:10:03.080 thousands of protests across this country every year the vast majority of them are
00:10:09.080 non-violent peaceful protests many are disruptive right locally disruptive and sometimes intensely
00:10:16.200 nationally disruptive but that's core democratic activity you know to think that we are going to
00:10:22.920 invoke a national emergencies act in response to what in many communities are non-violent but
00:10:31.640 disruptive protests is deeply concerning and it's not about the subject matter of the protest right
00:10:37.560 nothing in this law specifies that it's the trucker convoys or these specific protests
00:10:44.440 that the law applies to. This is a broad law with national application that applies to
00:10:51.640 blockades and it's a concerning breadth of law right now and it's a very concerning precedent
00:10:59.720 that's being set about how governments respond to protests. Absolutely, concerning for all
00:11:07.480 canadians i would think uh and and the threat or the risk of this be becoming a slippery slope
00:11:13.960 i would assume right you know we've we've now lived through a pandemic where emergency orders
00:11:19.480 have been somewhat normalized uh if we think back to the beginning of this uh it was really
00:11:25.160 unprecedented to see a series of emergencies um states of emergency being declared in each
00:11:31.560 of the provinces we have now many of us lived under some version of the state of emergency for
00:11:36.360 two years and one of the real concerns is that we're going to get used to the erosion of democratic
00:11:42.040 controls we're going to get used to the concentration of power within the executive
00:11:47.160 branch we're going to get used to emergency orders um that have severe limits on our rights and
00:11:53.320 freedoms uh coming up from government and i and i do think that you know i i question whether we
00:11:59.880 would be seeing the use of the Emergencies Act federally if we hadn't had two years of states of
00:12:06.440 emergency to deal with our public health situation. I'm not saying those states of emergency weren't
00:12:10.600 justified but we do need to be extremely careful about normalizing the use of what is supposed to
00:12:16.440 be really exigent and really targeted emergency legislation. Well absolutely and the Western
00:12:24.920 standard reported uh just today too that um uh the the coots blockade had a seizure of uh weapons
00:12:34.200 a cache of weapons uh that uh the pr the the protesters the main organizers for the blockade
00:12:41.480 knew nothing of they knew nothing of the people who were associated with those weapons
00:12:46.600 uh and and as well we are hearing reports coming out of ottawa about the uh the story where
00:12:53.800 2000 weapons were were robbed or stolen from from a vehicle and there's there's a serious
00:13:03.240 concern that those are going to also be potentially planted uh in the in the protest in ottawa
00:13:11.960 yeah and those are absolutely very serious concerns you know at the coots
00:13:16.840 order uh that was quite effectively seemingly dealt with uh by police using their existing
00:13:23.720 powers um you know the it is hard to get a handle on what the actual security situation is frankly
00:13:31.080 because we don't have access to all the information that the police have um the situation in ottawa i
00:13:36.280 think is unique nationally in terms of the um scope and scale and how embedded that protest is
00:13:45.560 but that one city cannot be the basis for a national emergency. The fact that we have had
00:13:51.720 concerns about violence, concerns about weapons at a few different sites doesn't mean that overall
00:13:59.080 these protests are violent and doesn't necessarily justify the use of emergencies legislation.
00:14:08.040 We frequently see protests that have a few people or even you know a couple hundred people out of a
00:14:13.640 approach us to 10,000 that engage in property destruction and violent acts. And when that
00:14:18.920 happens, at least we are very clear to stand up and say the actions of a few cannot cancel out
00:14:26.220 the freedom of expression and peaceful assembly rights of the many, many, many thousands of people
00:14:30.960 that gathered there to peacefully express their views. Right. And that's what we're hearing from
00:14:37.240 the organizers on both fronts in Coutts and Ottawa is that they they stand for freedom they stand for
00:14:44.440 and they're there protesting that peacefully and I would from from all reports we're hearing from
00:14:51.240 both groups both camps that they do not believe that the weapons that are being potentially
00:14:58.680 associated with these protests there there are rumors that they're potentially being planted so
00:15:05.960 so that it gives reason or gives the right to invoke these kinds of emergency acts within
00:15:16.440 the context of how they're being brought forward. So it's definitely unfolding as we go through
00:15:24.600 each day and we'll keep an eye on how this plays out. We'll also be obviously paying attention to
00:15:32.040 hear the the different um uh procedures and policies that they plan to to bring forward
00:15:38.680 as you mentioned i think you called them um the the actions that they're going to bring forward or
00:15:44.440 uh the emergency orders yeah the order yeah the orders thank you uh so we'll be we'll be paying
00:15:49.960 attention to that for sure and uh you know the prime minister has mentioned that these will be
00:15:54.520 be geographically targeted. They will be timely and short-lived. So I guess we will also be
00:16:03.400 watching that. So Abby Deschman, Director of Criminal Justice at the Canadian Civil
00:16:08.760 Liberties Association, thanks very much for joining us and for shedding a little bit more
00:16:13.560 light on the Emergencies Act that is now invoked in Canada. Yeah, my pleasure.
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